progressive involvement

Sestak suckers Specter

Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) is going to run against Sen. Arlen Specter in the Democratic Senate primary in Pennsylvania.  Specter, as everyone knows, was a Republican all his life, but just recently switched parties because he knew he could no longer win re-election as a Republican. 

Sestak has been hitting Specter on not being a good enough Democrat, which would seem a logical line of attack against someone who, until just the other day, was a Republican.  Specter, says Sestak, constitutes a "flight risk" for Democrats.  

All this must be getting to Specter, who, on Thursday, called Sestak a "flagrant hypocrite" because Sestak himself was not a registered Democrat until 2006, and did not vote in primary elections from 1971 to 2005.

Sestak calmly replied that the reason he did not vote in primaries in the stated period is because he was an officer in the United States Navy and he felt that naval officers should be non-partisan.  After he retired from active service, he registered as a Democrat.

 

But will she be better than Emma Thompson?

Julianna Moore was slated to play Hillary Clinton in the HBO film "The Special Relationship."  It's about the Clintons and Tony Blair, the British prime minister, in the late 1990's.  (Dennis Quaid will play Bill.  Michael Sheen will play Tony Blair.) 

Unfortunately, Moore had a scheduling conflict and is unable to do the film.  Hope Davis will replace her.  I'm a big fan of Julianna Moore, but she doesn't particularly look like Hillary.  Davis, however, does.

If that is the case, then the United States is no longer operating under the rule of law

On Monday, Department of Defense General Counsel, Jeh Johnson, was asked by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) whether terrorism detainees acquitted in courts could be released in the United States.  Note the word "acquitted," as in "not guilty."  Washington Independent:

Johnson said that “as a matter of legal authority,” the administration’s powers to detain someone under the law of war don’t expire for a detainee after he’s acquitted in court. “If you have authority under the law of war to detain someone” under the Supreme Court’s Hamdi ruling, “that is true irrespective of what happens on the prosecution side.”

In other words, the President has the power to detain someone--throw them in jail--whether or not they've committed a crime, and whether or not they've been declared "not guilty" in a trial by law.

Martinez asked the next logical question:  "So the prosecution is moot?"  In other words, it doesn't matter what the court held?  Johnson replied that under “law of war authority,” according to the September 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force, the person may continue to be detained.  If that doesn't work, “we have the authority in the first place.”  That "authority," then, is really "just because we say so."

As Glenn Greenwald put it when the Obama administration first proposed its system of preventive detentions three months ago:

If you really think about the argument Obama made yesterday...it becomes manifest just how profound a violation of Western conceptions of justice this is. What Obama is saying is this: we'll give real trials only to those detainees we know in advance we will convict. For those we don't think we can convict in a real court, we'll get convictions in the military commissions I'm creating. For those we can't convict even in my military commissions, we'll just imprison them anyway with no charges ("preventively detain" them).    

Palin's pallid poll numbers

Gallup has a new poll up on Gov. Palin, noting that GOP support for her has inched up slightly since she announced she was resigning her office.  Those still aren't great numbers though.  Up to 70% of Republicans could vote for her, but her showing among Democrats and Independents is poor.  54% say they almost surely wouldn't vote for her, while only 43% say that almost surely would. 

She can do what she wants, of course, but the poll would not be particularly encouraging if she were really thinking about running for president.  My guess is that that's not the deal.  If I were Sarah Palin looking at that poll, I wouldn't think, "Gee, I could be president."  I'd be thinking, "Hey, looks like there might be a market there."

She can't seriously be thinking of running for President, can she?

"All options are on the table," she said to CNN.  She quits the one political office she's held, half-way through her first term, because she can't take the media heat, and she thinks she can run for a much more important office with much greater media scrutiny?  On top of which, she quits to show she's not a quitter?

I'm sympathetic to Marie Cocco's position here that media coverage of Sarah Palin has been sexist and misogynistic.  I've said so myself, back when John McCain first tapped her to be vice presidential nominee, and again, when David Letterman made his stupid joke.

Now, if Palin could only stir herself to learn something about government and stop embarrassing herself by saying that something called the "department of law" keeps people from making baseless accusations against the president--therefore, she could be president since the sniping is not so bad in that position--some of us, those not opposed to her on gender grounds, might be able to take her seriously.

"We hold these truths to be self evident..."

...that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

There's something about Sarah

That she's not saying.  Yesterday's speech was a mish-mash of disjointed thoughts which appeared to have been cobbled together at the last minute before a hastily-assembled and small crowd on what is typically "news-dump" day.  Her stated reason for resigning is that she's been so successful in two and a half years that she doesn't have anything left to do.  Anybody believe that particular whopper?

She tossed a few barbs toward the press, but most of her problems appear to be within her own party.  Insiders from the McCain campaign have gone public.  The Alaska Legislature is getting ready to over-ride her veto on stimulus funds.  She has no political friends in Alaska, in either party.  She reportedly sees the hand of Mitt Romney behind some of her problems.  (That part might be true.)

Andrea Mitchell seems emphatic that Gov. Palin is out of politics.  Palin insiders told Mitchell that the Governor is "fed up" with politics and "doesn't like her life."  This is the second time she resigned before the end of her term.  (She also resigned as chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.)  Given that record, how could she ever ask someone to vote for her in the future?

Various blogs and news organizations are speculating that some kind of scandal is about to break and she's trying to make herself less of a target.  She already has $500,000 in legal debts, and two ethics complaints against Gov. Palin are still pending.  Stay tuned. 

In the meantime, the decks are cleared for Gov. Palin to make some money.  She already has a multi-million dollar book deal with Rupert Murdoch, and she can make a bundle giving speeches.  She may not have a future in elective politics, but she can do very well on the money side of it.  For that, you don't need credibility.  You only need a market.

Nope

The press has universally condemned Mark Sanford, and nearly-universally praised his wife, Jenny Sanford.  It's not difficult to see why.  Sanford's behavior is difficult to defend.  Meanwhile, Jenny Sanford comes from an upper-crust Chicago family with upper-crust blood lines.

Mrs. Sanford has issued a new statement.  It is similar to those she has issued previously in that she, again, says she forgives her husband and looks forward to reconciliation, which, she acknowledges, will not be easy.  Then, she says:

However, his far more egregious offenses were committed against God, the institutions of marriage and family, our boys and me.

I can completely understand why Jenny Sanford is angry with her husband, but I can't really see why the people of South Carolina should be--not about that anyway.  They seemed quite willing to look the other way when Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC) was prowling the state, including his seduction of a woman on her way to be executed.

Mark Sanford should apologize to the people of South Carolina who actually have a stake in such an apology, i.e. those who would have been affected by his unwillingness to take stimulus money for unemployment, and those might have affected if a disaster had struck while he was out on his own "Appalachian Trail."

Department of the Unintentionally Laughable

Mr. Franken now goes to the Senate having effectively stolen an election. If the GOP hopes to avoid repeats, it should learn from Minnesota that modern elections don't end when voters cast their ballots. They only end after the lawyers count them.

By every which count, every which way, Al Franken won a narrow victory over Norm Coleman, and the Journal just can't stand it.  I don't remember them saying anything about Florida, 2000, when most of the counts favored Al Gore.

Gross hypocrisy commends itself

From their (religious right's) point of view the cause, the need to police what people do in bed, is, by definition, right, because it’s literally God-given. So the fact that some of those trying to police what other people do in bed are themselves doing nasty things does not reflect on the cause itself — on the contrary, it shows just how necessary more bed-snooping is.

It’s also notable that conservatives are, in practice, more forgiving of their politicians’ sins than liberals. John Edwards and Eliot Spitzer ended their political careers; Ensign and Vitter are still in the Senate, and Newt Gingrich is out there on the Sunday shows, speaking for the GOP. Why? Because where liberals see gross hypocrisy, conservatives see men doing the Lord’s work — which partially excuses their own failings. Liberals think that a man who has an affair is worse if he preaches moral values; conservatives think he’s better. You might say that as they see it, if he interferes with what enough other people do in bed, it doesn’t matter what he does himself.

Paul Krugman